Elizabeth
by Got Tea
Summary: Boyd is apprehensive, nervous, even. And with good reason. Meeting mothers… is never good. Has never once been smooth. Sequel to Iris. Enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

**Elizabeth**

* * *

 **Part One**

 **...**

"Are you sure about this?" asks Boyd, hands jammed uneasily into his pockets as he looks up at the neat, orderly house before them.

"Of course I am," she replies. "Why? Surely you're not nervous, are you?"

It's an unusual feeling, he has to admit, but for the first time in he doesn't know how long, Boyd can feel a prickle of something uncomfortable in his stomach. "Maybe," he admits, a little grudgingly.

Grace laughs, her head tilting back slightly, and the bright autumn sunshine makes her eyes gleam as she looks up at him, amusement and relaxation leaving her face open and happy.

Gorgeous, he thinks, watching her smile, the way she moves as she steps further away from him. It won't do, but he has a longer stride and moves too, is beside her before she can reach the painted, pristine front door.

It's getting on for six weeks now, and he still can't resist temptation, is still thoroughly, utterly lost in her. His hand finds hers, their grip merges and it's too easy to pull her closer, to gaze down into those bright, cheerful blue eyes that see straight through him, into him.

"Grace," he begins, and then doesn't start again, leaves the sentence dangling, unfinished. Meeting mothers… is never good. Has never once been smooth.

But she grins up at him, squeezes gently in reassurance. "Relax. You'll like her. She'll like you, I promise." A doubtful eyebrow rises, he can't help it, and Grace shakes her head. "She already does."

"How? She doesn't know me."

Grace shrugs, easy, effortless. "I've worked with you for years, Peter. She knows everything."

He steps her closer, lets his free hand settle on her waist. "Everything?"

That wicked, impish smirk nearly makes him forget himself, their surroundings. The hint of huskiness in her tone as she reconsiders, says, "Well, maybe not _everything_ …" definitely does. Succumbing to the inevitable, he leans down at the exact moment she stands up on tiptoe, their lips meeting and merging in the in-between.

All thoughts and gentlemanly intentions go out the window the moment she leans into him and he feels the length of her body pressed against his own. Age is just a number, he knows, and it's certainly no barrier to slipping his hand beneath her jacket, letting his fingers seek and roam, gently wandering across the ridges and valleys of the vertebrae in her lower back. The feel of her skin beneath his palm is addictive, as addictive as the taste of her, the scent of her, the way his heart races in response to her.

Kissing her is so unbelievably easy and the way she answers, the way she wraps her arms around his neck and lets go of everything, losing herself so completely in the moment – it works magic on his senses, amplifies all the feedback, thrusts him into an emotional storm that's every bit as heady as it's ever been, as he could ever want it to be. More so, even. Sex and attraction is one thing, but this… these feelings, emotions…

Breathing ragged and heart racing, he pulls back a fraction, feels her soft whimper of protest that dies away as his head drops to nuzzle her neck briefly, before he returns again to the siren call of her mouth, his lips gently tracing hers before once again seeking more, the heady rush of it all amplified so many times over by the intense rush of love that has slowly but surely built up over all the long years.

As lost as he is in her he fails to hear the sound of the door opening, to register the impatient tutting and the heavy sigh of disapproval. It's only when something cold and wet hits his shoulder, splashes up into his face and hers that Boyd flinches and yanks his head back, eyes blinking rapidly against the onslaught.

An eerily similar, yet older version of the woman still partially entangled in his arms is standing on the doorstep, irked blue eyes fixed unblinkingly on him and a very familiar scowl on her face. "I can't lift a bucket these days," she announces, holding up the empty glass in her hand, "So I had to make do with this instead."

…

"I would have thought, given that even your youngest nephew is _well_ past the chaos of his teenage hormones – and is even about to have a child of his own – that you might _finally_ be old enough to have outgrown such nonsense," Iris sniffs, scowling at her daughter, "but then again," she continues, looking Boyd up and down, eyes scrutinising him sharply over the rim of her glasses, "I suppose I can see why you might be given to lose your senses now and then."

It's a rare feeling to find himself speechless, but in this instance Boyd can think of absolutely nothing to say. Not a single word. He tries anyway, clears his throat and begins, "I –"

Iris gifts him with a chilly glare. "Be quiet, handsome one. I didn't ask for your opinion." Fixing her gaze on her child, she stands with her hands firmly on her hips, somehow seeming much taller than the five feet and eight or so inches Boyd guesses her to be.

Feeling properly scolded he shuts his mouth and instead glances over at Grace. He wonders what she's thinking, how she's going to react. He expects her to apologise, as he intends to do himself just as soon as he's allowed to speak, but instead he finds her scowling angrily at her mother, hands also on her hips in a mirror image of the confident, assertive woman before her.

Hmm… like mother, like daughter, it seems…

Interesting…

Observing as some kind of silent, unspoken conversation passes between the two of them, a prickle of something highly uncomfortable creeps over him and he begins to wonder if perhaps he is just a little bit out of his depth here. Grace alone is enough to drive him crazy when she's riled and in an argumentative mood, but by the looks of things he's suddenly found himself with what he's rapidly beginning to suspect is the equivalent of two argumentative, riled Graces.

"What on earth did you think you were doing?" demands Iris. "I didn't bring you up to behave like that."

"Enjoying myself," mutters Grace, refusing to back down. Simultaneously stunned by the conversation going on around him, and incredibly amused by the mutinous look on her face, Boyd has to work very hard to school any trace of the desperate need to laugh from his features. If ever he wanted a glimpse of what she was like as a teenager, surely, he muses, he's seeing it right now.

Iris gives her daughter a withering glare. "And," she continues, tone just as strident, "in full view of the neighbours! There's a perfectly good porch with partial walls for that sort of thing. You'll do well to remember that in future, the pair of you."

Still unsure of what he can possibly say, but positive that he ought to say something, Boyd tries again with a restrained, polite, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Foley."

"Don't you 'Mrs. Foley' me, young man! Not when you were stood in my front garden with your tongue down my daughter's throat and your hands up her sweater."

" _Mother!_ " protests Grace, and even though he knows her so well he swears he detects a hint of a whine in her tone.

"No!" snaps Iris. "Don't you try it either. And what time do you call this?"

"Lunch time," retorts Grace quickly, "just like we agreed."

Iris makes a show of looking at the clock. "It's half past one."

Grace rolls her eyes. "So? I said we'd be here around about this time."

"Since when has lunch time at this house ever been anything other than twelve thirty?"

"It's _Saturday_. We work all week – we're entitled to a lie-in and some extra rest."

The older woman eyes them both with a very shrewd expression. "Oh yes, a lie-in… of _course._ Silly me…"

Still struggling not to laugh, Boyd can only grin boyishly at her, amused beyond measure when she smirks back at him, and then actually winks.

…

Lunch is an easy, relaxed affair around a scarred, worn kitchen table that Boyd guesses has seen a great many moments in the Foley family history. Far easier – and certainly a lot friendlier – than he was expecting. The conversation is mostly light, and humorous. For him, at least. Grace is suddenly rather quiet, answering instead of asking the questions, and for a while he finds himself caught up in pondering why, even as he keeps up a steady, polite conversation with both of them.

It seems highly out of character for her, and he wonders if there's something wrong. If perhaps introducing him to her mother at such an early stage in their changed relationship is somehow playing on her mind, bothering her. He thinks it unlikely, but then, if all the years he's known her have taught him anything, it's that Grace doesn't always react the way he would expect her to.

"Are you any good about the house?" Iris asks, catching him off guard.

"What?" he stumbles, momentarily wrong-footed.

She reaches for her glass, and for just a moment he wonders where the contents of it are headed, but then she takes a sip and swallows. "You know, fixing things, decorating, repairs… that sort of thing."

Boyd raises an eyebrow. "Don't you have three sons?" he asks, both unwilling to find his precious, limited free time redirected away from the activities of his own choosing, and strongly suspecting he's being studied and examined with great enthusiasm and entertainment.

"Oh, I do," Iris assures him, giving him a hint of that particular smirk he's spent years receiving from Grace, "but one can never have too many men in one's life. Particularly not if they are both useful _and_ handsome."

"Don't flatter him," Grace interjects. "He'll be insufferable all afternoon otherwise."

Quite deliberately, Boyd leans his head on hand and gazes at her, eyes full of a calculated amount of almost-but-not-quite dejection as he enquires softly, almost sadly, "You don't think I'm handsome?"

Grace snorts, pointedly not looking at him as she cuts up a slice of ham. He waits patiently until she looks up and he can snare her gaze with his own, the slightest twitch of his brow letting her know he's not giving up, that he's still after an answer to his question.

She sighs, not falling for it. "You know damn well that I do," she retorts, even as her eyes remain fixed on his, her expression becoming more and more intrigued, more captivated as the seconds drag on.

He has learned that her gaze is a dangerous thing. A place to become irretrievably lost, even at the most inopportune moments. A place to see and feel and experience all the things he's ever wanted to see and feel and experience. Somewhere to know that he is understood and accepted and wanted. Loved. Desired. Needed.

He has learned that it's a dangerous thing, yes, but he has yet to discover quite how to protect himself from it. How to prevent himself from both becoming ensnared by whatever bewitching quality it is she possesses, and then falling deeper and deeper as she holds onto him, refusing to relinquish him.

"Good Lord," announces Iris, her voice, somewhere between amused and annoyed, making both of them jump as the moment between them shatters. "You two definitely need to get out more. Spend some time outside in the fresh air – go for a nice walk and burn off some of that excess energy."

"We went away for the weekend," Boyd points out, inexplicably feeling the need to defend himself.

"Hm, so I heard. To the beach, even. Didn't get much sun though, did you?" Iris snorts, pointedly looking him up and down again. "Comfy bed, was it?"

Her audacity startles him, and then tickles him. He grins wickedly at her, entirely unabashed. "Exceedingly. There are far better – and _much_ more entertaining – ways to burn off energy than walking."

Grace groans but Iris only laughs more as her daughter demands, "Do you two mind?"

The older woman shakes her head. "No, no. Not at all."

Reaching across under the table, Boyd rests his leg against Grace's and smiles at her in what he hopes is a winning manner. Judging from the look he receives in response though, he considers the tactic a failure. Grace is definitely riled, and that, he realises, could very definitely play in his favour. Later on. Irritating Grace – irritating her, not angering her – tends to lead to rather spectacular and particularly enjoyable consequences, he has learned. It's a fine line to walk, but over the last few weeks he's caught himself indulging in the practice on more than one occasion.

"Did you know," he begins casually, glancing over at the older woman to his left, "that she once told a suspect you were dead?" Boyd ignores the blatantly dirty look being directed his way, and instead watches with fascination as one pair of blue eyes suddenly flicker across to another, the older woman coolly regarding her daughter and the way she seems to squirm slightly.

"I was building a rapport," Grace protests. "It was important in the moment. It's not like I actually meant it."

"Charming," sniffs Iris. "Thanks _a lot_!"

It's highly entertaining, thinks Boyd, watching the way a woman as confident and secure, as serene and unshakably steady as Grace is, reverts, just a little bit, back into a shy, self-conscious child. He wonders what she was like as a little girl, whether he might convince her mother to tell him some of the stories, share some of her memories; show him some of the photographs. He's known Grace for the better part of twenty years, seen her change over time, watched her go through events both terrible and wonderful, but she's always had just that little bit of mystery about her. There have always been things, levels and sides and facets to her, that he's always been well aware he hasn't been privy to.

Until now. Now he's suddenly learning what hides beneath the face she shows to the rest of the world, and it's incredible. Powerful. Moving. The extraordinary mix of strength and weakness, of humour and sadness, memory and hope, of playful mischievousness and steady normality… it's intoxicating. Profoundly fascinating. The things she is slowly allowing him to see, the deliberately, carefully hidden things that she is gradually sharing with him, revealing to him bit by bit in the softer, quieter moments… it speaks volumes to him about how much she trusts him, how much their relationship means to her.

And that, he thinks, is maybe the most wonderful thing of all, because for every additional inch of herself and her history, her life, that she shares with him, he finds another barrier crumbling inside himself, finds it gets just that little bit easier to talk to her in return. To share the things that have so long haunted him and stalked him in the dark, in his weakest hours. She's been telling him for years that talking is cathartic, and he's only just now learning that he should have listened right at the beginning. That maybe he really should have grabbed her and kissed her at the end of that very first case, just like instinct screamed at him that he ought to do.

Watching her now, as she bickers and giggles with her mother, eyes glittering with happiness, he finds something he's hard put to name swelling through his chest, tugging at his limbs. It's moments like this that perhaps he treasures the most, because this is Grace as he's never known her in almost two decades of friendship. This is Grace away from work, relaxed, and without guard or filter. This is what he's been chasing and hoping for and dreaming about for longer than he'd care to admit, and what he still can't quite believe is now finally his.

"Oh, hello," smirks Iris, as his eyes flicker across to her, watching the expression on her face as she teases her daughter mercilessly. "Welcome back to the conversation."

Any response he might choose to give, suspects Boyd, his concentration immediately refocused, would rapidly be turned around and used against him so instead he opts for another of his most charming smiles, knowing full well how effective it is on not only his lover, but on most other women as well.

Not this time, it seems, if the hard, knowing stare that comes his way is anything to judge by, before, " _Anyway_ , as I was saying, the rat girl…"

"She means Eve," Grace supplies helpfully, glancing over at him.

"Yes, I could guess as much, thank you," sighs Boyd, shivering at the thought. "I was just thinking how damn apt the description is. Especially after yesterday."

Grace smirks. "Oh dear," she drawls, clearly getting into the spirit of the conversation now. "You're not still traumatised, are you?"

"Traumatised?" he asks, incredulous. "Jesus _Christ_ , Grace. A fucking rat _invaded_ our office! She sat there for that entire meeting with her bag wriggling and moving on the table right next to me, without even batting an eyelid. And then the bloody thing crawled out!"

"Oh, come on," sighs Grace, rolling her eyes in a manner that makes him vaguely contemplate strangling her. "It only just managed to poke its head out before Kat screamed bloody murder. It hardly crawled out of her bag and invaded the meeting."

"It was present, wasn't it?"

Clearly there is little sympathy from her. "It's just a rat."

"'Just a rat'…" he echoes, nettled. "Who was it who ran into the office and shut the door between her and Hannibal when he got loose?" he demands.

"Who was right behind me as I shut that door?" she retorts.

Muffled laughter makes them both turn in their seats and look at Iris.

"What?" Grace asks.

The older woman grins and shakes her head. "Nothing," she smirks, waving a hand dismissively. "I'm just enjoying the show. All the bickering and the sparks… No wonder the two of you never made it down to the sea." She looks at Grace, still smirking. "If your bedroom antics are anything like as intense as your verbal sparring, then I'm not surprised you're worn out every time you come to visit."

Grace groans yet again, but Boyd just laughs.

Iris turns to glare at him. "And you, young man, can watch your language! I'll not have those filthy words spoken under this roof."

"Sorry," he replies, meekly helping himself to some more salad.

"You'd better be! I had a swear jar when my children were young and I've still got it – don't think I won't fetch it out again if needs be. Or that the fines won't be much higher now that I can take more than just pocket money off you."

Boyd nods, holding up his hands, though he's not sure if the gesture is meant in apology, or self-defence.

"Anyway," continues Iris. "As I was saying, the rat girl called me last night."

Startled, Boyd nearly drops his fork, fumbling it as he stares at her.

Iris raises an eyebrow. "What?"

"Nothing, I…" he begins, unsure of what to say. He swallows. "Eve called you?"

"Why shouldn't she?" demands Iris, a hint of irritation in her tone. "I like her. She's interesting. We have a lot to talk about."

"How," grumbles Grace, "can you not object to what Eve does for a living, yet moan and groan like nobody's business about _my_ job?"

Iris shrugs. "Do I need a reason?"

Sensing another squabble brewing, Boyd interjects. "How do you know Eve?"

"I met her while Grace was ill. We talked."

"Oh, right." It's unoriginal, but there's not a lot else he can think of to say.

"I stayed here for a while," Grace explains, reaching for the water jug. "Eve came to visit."

"I see," replies Boyd, suddenly feeling as though he's been thrown into a parallel universe where things and people and actions exist that are incredibly unsettling in their sudden revelation.

"Yes. Well, Eve is inheriting an iguana and she wanted to know what I thought, what I might be able to tell her about them and their care."

Completely wrong-footed by the bizarre turn of the conversation Boyd simply decides to say nothing. To sit back and listen and let the conversation continue around him. It proves to be a good choice, an enlightening choice. Gives him the opportunity to watch and observe, to see the energy, the vibrancy in Grace's face as she interacts with her mother, to take in a side of her he's never seen before.

She talks with her hands a lot, her face taking on an array of expressions and emotions, and damn if it's not utterly, completely, entirely bewitching. He's falling more and more in love with her, just sitting watching her, listening to her, and he knows it. Simple, relaxed clothing to fit with a simple, relaxed occasion, and the kind of pure, happy, open animation he's rarely seen in her before; it's an unbelievably alluring combination.

The brightness in her, the spark in her… it lights a fire in his heart that blazes with a multitude of things; protection, devotion, gratitude, contentment, love, desire… She's gorgeous. To him, she is beautiful, perfect; so complementary to all his many sides, his many faults and flaws and corners and edges, and maybe that's what makes it work between them. There are strengths and weaknesses in them both, but somehow they balance each other out in exactly the right places, exactly the right ways. Maybe that is what is responsible for the breathtakingly powerful chemistry that they somehow generate between them. All he has to do is look at her and –

"Earth to Peter…" Startled, he looks up at the sharp tone. "Oh good," says Iris, her lips twitching, "you're back with us. For a moment there I thought you were going to leap across the table and pounce."

Unwilling to let that one slide past unchallenged, Boyd gazes sedately the elderly woman. "Mrs Foley, you wound me," he tells her gravely. "I'm far too well-mannered for that sort of behaviour."

The look he receives in return is considering, acquiescent. "Yes, I do believe you are," she agrees at last.

He smiles innocently at her, then adds, "At least, I am in someone else's house."

That startles a bark of laughter out of her, one that makes him grin and laugh in return. "God, you're like randy teenagers, the pair of you. Honestly! It's almost as bad as having three boys in the house again. Grace, go and check the last of the blackberries – see if there are enough to make a crumble. Boyd, you can help me clear up."

Raising his eyebrows a touch at the order, Boyd does as he's told, watching with amusement as Grace automatically does the same, gathering a small basket from the back of the kitchen door and heading outside with nothing more than a serene nod of her head and an easy smile as she goes.

"She loves crumble," Iris offers by way of explanation, handing Boyd a tea towel and prodding him in the direction of the sink.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two**

 **…**

Watching her as she walks slowly among the raised beds, her fingers trailing through the flowers, the crisp, bright sunshine soaking into her skin, highlighting the colour in her hair… Boyd feels his chest swell, his heart ache with emotion. There is peace in the way she moves, something that's been missing for a long time, something he's been waiting weeks to see return. He can see it in the way she reacts to the rich life of the garden around her, and there is something in her expression that is so full of simple joy that it fills him with both the need to go to her, to gather her up against him and hold on, and to leave her alone so that he can keep watching, keep taking in the view.

"You love her." It's not a question, and Boyd doesn't treat it as such as Iris moves to stand beside him, looking out at her youngest child.

"She's beautiful," he replies, his thoughts still in the same place as they were during lunch. "She has a beautiful soul."

He can feel the raised eyebrows that are being directed at him before he even turns to look down at her. "Those are not words I would ever have expected to cross your lips. Far too poetic for the likes of you," she says, and he has to smile at just how quickly she's got his measure.

"Very true," he agrees, smiling. "But on the odd occasion…"

"Hmm." Iris does not sound convinced.

He lifts his hands, unsure how to convey how much the sight of Grace as relaxed and content as she is means to him. "Look at her. Just look at her – she's happy, she's healthy, and you can see it in her. The shadows are gone, the fear is gone. She's found some kind of peace that's been missing for months, and it's wonderful to see it. To not be afraid for her." He pauses, breathes in sharply, aware of the intensity of his tone, the feeling behind his words. He wonders what she's thinking of his reaction, whether she realises, too, just how much it means to him. How hard it is for him to admit it. Oh well, he thinks, in for a penny, in for a pound. "And yes, you're right. I do love her." He looks down again, into cool, considering blue eyes, feels a need to add, "I hope you approve."

Lips purse, an eyebrow raises, and he wonders if this is what Grace will look like in twenty-five, thirty years' time. If he's staring into a tiny glimpse of what he fervently hopes is his future. "I think I'm beginning to."

"Good."

Iris's expression changes, becomes unreadable. "Then again…" she adds, as she looks up a few scant inches at him.

He wonders what she's about to say, raises an eyebrow in return. "Yes…?" he prompts, disliking the wait, and the wondering.

The older woman scowls at him, blue eyes narrowing in an expression that is eerily familiar. "You, young man, are the one responsible for getting my daughter to go poking around the lives of dead people. You should be letting them rest in peace, not disturbing the dust left behind by old ghosts."

"I don't think ghosts have dust."

Iris pins him with a stare. "Don't try and be clever with me, boy. You know damn well what I mean."

"True," he grins. "I do."

A natural, easy sort of silence falls between them as they continue to clean the dishes.

"Why do you object to what Grace does?" he eventually asks, curious.

Iris sighs. "I don't," she tells him, rinsing a stack of soapy plates. "I'm very proud of her, and I love that she does something she loves. But Grace… she's too serious about some things – she forgot how to laugh after John, and so I tease her and needle her to keep her on her toes, to make her smile. She knows I do it, and she enjoys it, too. Grace likes to argue – it's like sport to her."

"That," smirks Boyd, "I know."

Iris eyes him sidelong, eyes glittering. "I don't doubt you for a moment."

He laughs again, both at the implication, and at the old woman's tactics.

"Growing up she was so damn clever – every day it was endless questions and discussions that went round and round in circles. I used to go to bed with my head spinning, wondering how on earth she managed to get from one obscure train of thought to the next. She drove her brothers crazy."

"Trust me," says Boyd, with feeling, "she drives me crazy as well."

Another sidelong glance, accompanied by, "I'm sure she does." He opens his mouth to respond, sees the smirk, and then closes it again, resolutely not rising the provocation and instead reaching for a handful of cutlery to dry.

"Her father liked to debate with her, he would spend hours winding her up, playing devil's advocate, just to see how far he could stretch her mind, how much he could make her think. It was fascinating to watch, but exhausting."

He knows that feeling, too. "What was she like? As a little girl?"

Iris nods her head towards a photograph on the wall by the door and Boyd moves over to it, studying the three boys aged in their early to mid-teens and the tiny young girl sitting on the lap of the oldest boy. Only seven or so in the photograph, there's no chancing of him failing to recognise Grace. Her smile is still the same, still lights up her face in exactly the same way when she's truly happy.

"Quiet, mostly," Iris tells him. "Serious, empathetic. Always listening to people, always taking things in. Observing. From the moment she learned to read she was always lost in books. Always. She loved school, loved her teachers. I never had to chase her to do her homework. Nothing like her brothers – they were forever coming up with excuses about why they couldn't get it done, or why they had to rush off and do something else first."

Boyd nods to himself, recognising something of his own childhood in her words, the glass in his hands long since dry though he continues to polish it with the cloth unknowingly, utterly preoccupied as he studies little Grace.

"She was too quiet, really. It worried me for years that she only had a few friends, that she didn't seem to like going out, didn't want to party because she had exams to study for, or music lessons to go to, or dance classes."

"What happened?"

"University forced her out of her shell. She excelled academically – we knew she would – but she met people, she mingled, she went out. Every time she came home I could see the difference in her, see the growth. It was… everything I wanted for her."

Turning from the picture, Boyd moves to the window again. It's hard to picture the confident, assertive woman he knows as a quiet, introverted child. "She worried you that much?" He starts a little when the glass he is still polishing is taken from his hands and another is thrust at him instead.

"Grace is one of the strongest people I have ever known, but she has an incredibly vulnerable side to her as well. She just hides it very well."

It's a thought he's entertained himself a few times, particularly during the last several months. The closer he and Grace have grown the more he's been able to spot the occasional chinks in the armour she holds closely to herself, the more he has been able to understand that beneath the calm front there are not always clear, still waters. It fascinates him, and troubles him; ignites all his protective instincts.

The washing up is done; the suds gurgle in the sink as they drain away. Hands that are wrinkled with time as well as water stack plates, fill the kettle, put the cutlery away. Diversionary tactics. Boyd's seen them all before, in many, many guises and forms, and so he waits. He's learned over the years. From Grace.

He pours the tea into mugs that have surely seen a lot of history, replaces the teapot under the cosy, gets milk from the fridge. Feels completely comfortable about it, without even realising. He says nothing, keeps waiting.

"Three times I've thought I was going to lose her," remarks Iris, finally, her voice incredibly soft as she turns and watches her daughter still pottering about in the garden. "When she was a little girl – just a week before her sixth birthday – the boys were playing in the fields behind school and of course she wanted to go too, and I let her because it meant she wasn't sitting alone with her books somewhere. I was talking to some of the other mums – I can remember the conversation to this day. We were discussing who was doing what for the school Christmas play, and then suddenly Simon came flying through the gate screaming that Grace fallen. He was terrified, shaking. I dropped my bag and ran."

She pauses and swallows, eyes darkened by memory. "There was an old well at the edge of the field – there'd been a farm there years back, but it burnt down and was never rebuilt – most of the land was turned to housing. The cover on the well was rotten, and it gave way beneath her. She cracked her head and nearly drowned – we spent Christmas in hospital that year."

"But she recovered?"

"Yes. She doesn't remember it though – nothing from that day, or the weeks before it."

"How did you get her out of the well?" he asks.

"Jack climbed straight down – he was fifteen and skinny as they come – and he's the reason she didn't drown, but he couldn't get her out again. There were metal rungs set into the brick work, but most of them were worn or useless. In the end it took both the police and the firemen to get her out again. It even made the papers."

"So he saved her life then," remarks Boyd, turning to look at the photograph again, studying the young teenager holding his little sister, observing the protective, affectionate way his arms appear to be wrapped around his youngest sibling.

Iris nods, her expression grave. "He did. Twice now, in fact."

"Twice?"

The old woman closes her eyes for a moment, and Boyd wonders if perhaps he should withdraw the question and leave the rest of this conversation unfinished, but then Iris shakes her head, opens her eyes and continues. "When John… snapped… Jack was the one who found her. It was pure fluke – he had a book he'd borrowed from her, and he was in the neighbourhood so he went by to drop it off, thinking they could have a cup of tea and a chat because it was a Saturday and John worked Saturdays."

Iris stops, and Boyd feels a swell of something horrible in his stomach, feels his heart start to beat just a tiny bit faster. He's heard Grace's side of this story, what he thinks is an abbreviated version of the full tale that she will, at some point in the future, expand upon. When she is ready. What he already knows, though, is still enough to make him feel ill, and this, he suspects, watching Iris, might be even worse.

"I'll never forget the day – the moment, even – when Jack called me and said he'd found her. He was hysterical, absolutely falling apart on the phone. He couldn't even talk, tell me what had happened. All I heard was Grace and blood and the bottom of the stairs. I thought she was dead, the way he was talking. I've never felt so cold as I did in that moment."

The kitchen around them is silent, only the big clock above the door is ticking.

"I was cleaning the brasses. My hands were filthy, my apron was filthy…"

Boyd says nothing, for once in his life patience taking hold and making him wait out the tale. The old woman shivers and pulls her cardigan tighter, trying to ward off a chill that isn't physical. "Their house was only five streets away, and so I ran. You'd have thought that having three boys and with all the scrapes they got into that I'd have spent my life running after them, but no, it was only Grace that made me run. All the broken bones, the sports accidents, the falling out of trees and off bikes – the boys somehow always managed to do it in a controlled, calm manner. Not Grace. I got there before the ambulance men moved her…"

Iris pauses again, and her eyes are a long way away, years back in time remembering it all. Her voice drops to barely a whisper as she continues. "She was covered in blood. Absolutely covered in it – it was like a scene from one of those dreadful films my grandsons like, truly it was. She looked dead, lying there at the bottom of the stairs. I screamed; I know I did, because I remember Jack grabbing me and pulling me back. I could see the stripes across her back where her blouse was torn – her skin was ripped the same as the fabric. So many I couldn't count.

"And her face… I've never been able to get the image out of my head. Even today I can see it as clearly as I did that day. He'd beaten her so badly that had I not known it was her I wouldn't have been able to recognise her. My own child! It was days before the swelling came down and she started to look like my Grace again. Days."

She pauses and swallows heavily, shivering. "When Thomas went to see her he went as white as a sheet and then threw up all over the floor. Simon insisted it wasn't her – that Jack had made a mistake. My husband, my Henry, he… I'd never seen a look like that on his face before. I think it broke him, seeing his baby like that, because that's how he always thought of her, what he always called her. His Little One."

When Iris stops, hands shaking as she grips her cardigan, Boyd takes his turn. Says quietly, "She told me she was in a coma."

The older woman nods. "Eight days. He beat her unconscious, and then threw her down the stairs, cracking a bone in her neck. And then he changed his clothes and left for work. Just like that."

Boyd's seen it before, heard Grace's complicated theories on such behaviour many times, but that doesn't lessen the outrage that roars through him, that makes his skull pound and his heart burn. Doesn't stop him from taking a white-knuckled grip on the window ledge as he stares out down the garden, checking and rechecking.

She's still there. Still safe.

Iris sounds far away as she speaks again, as though she's lost inside thoughts buried a long, long way inside her head. "What I don't understand is why he did it. What made him snap. He was a nice lad – not the brightest star in the sky, but decent, hardworking. Likable enough. I've never understood what Grace saw in him, either, but she loved him and she was happy. And then one day… it was over."

Outside Grace is running her fingers through the leaves and stems of a herb bed, her expression peaceful, serene, and it is that serenity that calms him, that pulls some of the outrage and horror out of him. Boyd watches her lift her hands to her face, breathe in the scents clinging to her skin and smile deeply, her entire face lighting up at the simple pleasure of it, and it's that pleasure, that happiness that loosens the death grip he has on the window ledge, that relaxes some of the tension in his muscles, his stance. She looks like she is remembering things, he thinks. Memories that are far more pleasant than the tale Iris is sharing with him. Not for the first time he thinks of her as the calm at the centre of the storm, the one person who has always been a steadying, grounding force for him in the chaos of their working lives, in the pain of his own personal tragedy.

That she is now that same soothing, reassuring influence in their shared personal life… In all the hours he spent fantasising about her, about what they could do together, have together, be together, he never imagined it could be like this, feel like this. He never thought he would find what they seem to have found together, what they are beginning to build and share between them. Never imagined that they would fit so remarkably well, strengths seamlessly counteracting flaws, similarities effortless counterbalancing differences. It's like two pieces of a jigsaw, cut to fit precisely side by side, interlinked to build a stronger whole, a bigger picture.

He wonders if it is the same for her. If she feels the same way. Imagines not, because she doesn't think the same way as he does, doesn't feel things the same way he does. He'd like to know, though, and he makes a mental note to ask her at some point, to find out how she sees it, what she feels.

This tale though… this account of such a traumatic event, the hints into who Grace really is that Iris has been freely giving him… It fits with the things he has begun to see tiny glimpses of in unguarded moments, and it makes him wonder how much more there is hiding away, how long it will take him to get beneath the surface and get to know the real Grace, the rest of who she is and what she thinks and feels. To get to the point where he doesn't have to ask, or wonder. To where he just knows.

"Why are you telling me all this?" he asks, genuinely curious.

Iris raises an eyebrow. "Because you need to know."

Not the answer he was expecting. "Why? Don't you think it's down to Grace to tell me?"

Iris sighs heavily, gazes out of the window again, her expression clouded by the weight of time and history. "If you were anyone else, I'd agree with you. But you're not. You… mean more to her than anyone else, than all the men who've come and gone in her life over the years."

Boyd opens his mouth to interrupt, but Iris shakes her head and continues. "Oh, she hasn't said as much to me, but she doesn't need to – I know. And like I said, she's too serious sometimes, too afraid, and I don't want what I think is the best thing to happen to her in a long, long time to fall apart if it doesn't need to."

"That's…" begins Boyd, but she raises a hand and cuts him off.

"No, don't say anything. I'm well aware that it might not work out, and if it doesn't for whatever reason, then it doesn't, but this thing between the two of you… it's been a long time coming, and it seems to me to be serious, to be deserving of the truth and everything that goes with it."

She's been honest with him, thinks Boyd, as he weighs his possible answers, before settling with the simple, honest truth in return. "I meant it when I said I love her," he says, watching out of the window as the breeze stirs her hair and Grace reaches up to tuck it back behind her ear, a gesture that he's always found incredibly endearing. "What I didn't tell you, and maybe I should tell _her_ , is that I've been in love with her for years. When I first met her I was torn between wanting to strangle her, and fancying her like mad. And then when I worked with her again and again… each time it was such a mix of feelings. But when my unit was created there was never any question in my mind about wanting her to be part of it, it was just a question of how long it would take to convince her to work with me on a daily basis."

"Quite a while, as I recall," smiles Iris, fondly.

"Indeed."

"But it was worth it all in the end."

"Absolutely," he agrees, recalling a few of his favourite office memories from the last few years.

"You do know that there's such a thing as too much work, though, don't you?"

Boyd swallows a mouthful of tea. Takes a moment to consider his response. This feels like a sore topic, like a conversation he and Iris will revisit again in the future. He wants to say the right thing, to reassure her as well as defending himself and Grace. There's something… unnerving… about the clear, level, blue-eyed gaze that is fixed firmly on him, though. It's like looking in to the past, the present, and what he very much hopes will be the future all at the same time.

"Dedication," he begins, glancing down into his mug. "It was drummed into my skull growing up, and then again at Hendon. It's who I am, what I do. And this job… it's not just old bones, it's people's lives, their stories. It's justice for those who were wronged. It's about those who are left without any answers. Their pain and suffering, and their uncertainty. We look for the truth – what Grace calls closure – and we try to give that to those that are left behind."

He pauses, inhales, exhales slowly. Takes another sip of tea. "No one else will do it. No one else cares. But this job, this _team…_ I wouldn't want to do anything else. We make a difference. Maybe only to a small few, but we do make a difference."

Iris is still watching him, her expression utterly unreadable. "That's quite a speech," she comments.

Boyd shrugs, not knowing what else to say. "When we succeed, when we give someone the answers they are looking for… it makes it all worth it, and that feeling… it's –"

"Addictive?" she supplies.

"A little bit," he admits. "But it's more than that, it's… about humanity. Hope. Listening. Finding something that couldn't be found before. Easing someone's pain, giving them answers when before there was only months or years of the agony of not knowing."

"Closure," nods Iris.

"Closure," agrees Boyd. Then he looks sideways at the elderly woman. "But don't tell her I said so, okay?"

Iris rolls her eyes in a very Grace-like manner. "God, you two really are made for each other."

"I hope so."

"Mm. Just… remember to slow down occasionally, all right? Life is for living and you only get one chance at it. Don't work so hard you forget all the other things you should be enjoying. Don't work so hard you make yourself ill."

After thirty years in the job Boyd is a master at reading the subtext. "You think I make her work too much," he states.

The response he gets surprises him. "Oh no, no I don't. No one _makes_ Grace do anything – she's far too strong-willed for that – but I think your work ethic and her work ethic conspire to make her work far more than is good for her."

Sighing deeply, he takes his time in answering, thinking back over the last few long months when he has done his best to both be accommodating to her wish to work and also shepherd her out of the building at a reasonable time in an effort to ensure she spends plenty of time resting. It's been a difficult task. "I can't stop her from being dedicated, from loving what she does," he says at last. "I do my best to make sure she isn't wearing herself out, but she's… stubborn."

"Oh, I know, trust me, I know. But you lead by example, and the amount of hours you put in…"

"I put in so many hours during the week," Boyd says, "so that I can have as much time to myself as possible at the weekends. And these days I have a much more vested interest in having the weekends to do as I please."

One eyebrow raises in a very familiar arch as lips purse in a knowing smirk that almost – almost – makes him squirm. "I bet you do," is all she says.

Two can play at that game. Holding her gaze, he unleashes that slow, wicked grin Grace is so, so fond of. "I do," he tells her, seriously, "I _definitely_ do."

For a moment Iris is clearly ruffled, her words visibly failing her. It's incredibly amusing, makes the wicked grin turn into an unholy smirk. One that is greeted with a brow that lifts slowly, archly, and a tart, "You, young man, are what my mother would have considered to be a most _unsuitable_ kind of boy."

The smirk only widens, any sense of propriety or an appropriate response far from available, as relaxed as he feels in Iris' impish, entertaining company. He finally settles with, "I guess it's a good thing she's not here to disapprove of me then."

"Mm," is the reply, coupled with a nod of agreement. For a moment there is nothing, and then, "Actually, my mother would have been happy just to know Grace was happy."

Boyd lifts an eyebrow of his own, a wordless question.

"She adored Grace. She was her only granddaughter – I have a sister and she had three boys. Grace is the youngest of them all, by a good few years. The baby. My mother taught her to read, to love books."

"Really?" It's another hint at all the things he doesn't know, at the history of the woman he knows so much, yet so little, about.

Iris opens a drawer, begins to sift through chaos inside it until she can pull out a small, battered brown envelope. "I've been meaning to give her these for ages," she mutters, revealing a stack of photographs and flicking through them. She stops at one of a woman whom she bears a striking resemblance to, holding it out to him. Boyd studies the photo, the woman sitting in an armchair and the small child with a mass of long dark hair and tiny, delicate hands cradling a well-worn hardback book, who is tucked into her lap. The pair wear identical looks of concentration, of fascination. As though they are a long, long way lost in whatever it is they are reading.

Boyd knows that look, knows it very well indeed. He's seen it on Grace's face more times than he can count when she's been engrossed in reports in her office, when she's been studying material given to her by others, and more recently he's witnessed it at home, watched her curled up on the sofa with a book late at night, or gone to bed to find her tucked beneath the covers and lost in the pages of a novel.

An unwelcome feeling of intrusion begins to creep up on him, one he's unable to explain or understand. It's just a photograph, after all, but he can't shake the feeling that it depicts a moment that was significant to Grace, that he's trespassing on something she should be sharing with him herself. Putting the photograph down he lets his hands fall to his sides, suddenly inexplicably unwilling to touch. To pry.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three**

 **…**

"I still think this is a little uncomfortable," he finally admits into the waiting silence, surprising himself as the words form without conscious thought or decision. Iris tilts her head slightly, patiently questioning. "Talking about Grace behind her back – it feels very… dishonest," he elaborates.

Iris shrugs. "She knows. Why do you think she hasn't come back inside yet? My blackberry bush isn't _that_ big."

To which he can think of absolutely nothing to say. "Oh."

"Quite." The old woman sighs, and then takes a long, slow breath. "You love my daughter. You didn't have to tell me – I know. I can see it. But you don't understand her, not always. There are things about her that you've never been able to figure out, and that worries you."

Astounded, Boyd stares at her. "How can you _possibly_ know that?"

"Grace didn't get her empathic abilities from the sky – I might not be a psychologist, but I can feel things in people, see things in them. I know her. I can see it in her. And I can see it in _you_."

Boyd shifts on his feet, a hint of awkwardness prickling at him as he picks up the photograph again, looks at it and puts it back down, shoving his hands into his pockets and wondering where all this is going, how much of this is scripted. How much he has been set up.

Iris sighs, twisting to get a proper look at him. Standing under the weight of her scrutiny Boyd wonders what she's thinking as she stands silently, seemingly considering him. "Grace… adores you. I know she does – has done for a long time. But she struggles with change, with letting people get close enough. No, that's not the right way to put it. She… what happened with John scarred her. In more ways than one. And I just wanted you to understand that it will take her time to adjust, that it won't be easy for her, and by extension for you. I don't think either of you want this, what it is you have together, to fail, and I don't either, so I wanted to… make you more aware, I suppose."

She holds his gaze, steady and unafraid. "Call me an interfering old bat if you wish, but my daughter means the world to me, Peter, so in this instance I broke my own rules and decided to stick my oar in. For Grace. Because sometimes she needs a helping hand even though she's too stubborn to admit it."

The words leave Boyd with no idea how to respond, no idea what the right thing to say is. Stalling for time, and turning the conversation over and over in his mind, examining it from all angles, he steps back towards the work surface, busies his hands with pouring a fresh cup of tea. He doesn't particularly want one – imagines that in all the time they've been talking the remnants in the pot will have gone well and truly horrible – but it's something to fill the space, a task to occupy his hands and legitimise his lack of an immediate answer.

Something has been bothering Grace for a while now, and no matter what he's asked her or done or said, he hasn't been able to get to the bottom of what it is. Maybe it's that he's drunk on love, caught in the madness of that deliciously hedonistic wave that comes with the beginning of a new relationship, and thus he hasn't been able to find the right words and the right moment. It has only been a matter of a few weeks, after all, and they have been incredibly, unusually busy weeks, jammed full of a number of additional work commitments outside the realm of the CCUs normal day-to-day business. Whatever it is, though, he's spent a lot of time stewing over it in private, quietly worrying and wondering what it is he can possibly do to help.

"I used to think she should have been an actress," Iris says, seemingly out of the blue and Boyd glances at her over his shoulder, confused by the sudden loss of his turn to think and then speak.

"Why?"

"Because she's so good at hiding what she's thinking, what she's feeling. I've never known anyone as adept as my daughter at keeping something she wants to from everyone else."

Boyd stares, still unable to respond, a feeling he can't quite identify creeping up on him. He thinks he's about to hear something he's always known, but only in the back of his mind. Something he's never consciously dwelled upon, or considered.

Iris forges ahead anyway. "How long have you known Grace?"

"Years," he replies, the answer automatic.

A nod precedes, "And before the last few weeks, how much did you really know about her? I mean _really_ know? About her life, what she likes, what she doesn't like? What she does in her free time? What she reads for fun, or watches on TV? What she does with her evenings?"

Boyd opens his mouth to answer, automatically wanting to tell the old woman that he knows plenty about her daughter, but then closes it again, the wind ebbing from his sails like a rapidly deflating balloon. He doesn't have much of an answer, because he doesn't actually know much about the personal side of Grace. It's the very same thing he's been thinking, only in someone else's words. And given how much she matters to him, means to him, it stings. A lot.

Professionally she's very successful, he knows. He's studied her achievements, watched the way people in her field react to her. Waded through her books with interest, read some of her academic work out of curiosity and a desire to see how her mind works, what she thinks and how. He's seen her speak at a conference, and watched her handle hundreds of people, from hostile, belligerent suspects, to distraught, damaged and intimidated victims, and disgruntled team members. He's spent hours contemplating her demeanour, her ability to remain unruffled in even the most exasperating of situations. He's tried, and typically failed, to follow her example, to channel some of her patience.

But Grace the woman, Grace the daughter, sister, aunt… Iris is right, he realises. Just as he thought, he knows barely anything about the woman he is so enchanted by, despite working with her almost every day for nearly a decade now.

Somehow the old woman has wormed her way into his thoughts without him knowing. At least, that's how it feels as Iris voices what he's been struggling to put together in his head just recently. She can see it too, he can tell, as she looks at him, reads the expression on his face, the shock in his eyes. It's… unsettling.

"My point is," she tells him, "that Grace doesn't volunteer information. Just the opposite – she struggles to share things, even with those she cares about. I spend half my life trying to weasel things out of her and unpick the knots in that brain of hers.

"You'd think, given her job, that she'd be better at sharing," he muses.

"Indeed. But even as a child she was just the same. It's always puzzled me." She takes the refilled mug he offers her, murmuring her thanks.

"You need to give her time to settle," Iris tells him, her voice taking on a tone that is softer and far more serious than anything she's said so far. "Change is so hard for her, learning to trust is even harder."

"Because of her ex?" The words are out before he can stop them, and Boyd winces, wishing he could take them back.

Iris doesn't seem to notice, though, or care. Instead she simply nods. "John," she sighs. "I hate that man. I've tried and tried not to, but I can't not. It's a terrible thing, hate, to live with that evil rotting away inside you, but what he did to my little girl… " She's staring out into the garden again, her eyes on Grace, and Boyd wonders what is going through her mind, what she thinks when she looks at her daughter, when she sees the choices Grace has made in her life, the things that have happened to her.

It's not even been three hours, but already he likes Iris. Feels the need to try and reassure her. "We talk quite a bit," he admits. "It's not something I find easy, but it's important to her, and it's important to me, too. It didn't used to be… In fact, I hated it. But I was married, and when things went wrong we only ever argued, and that –"

"Solves nothing," Iris finishes.

Boyd nods. "Grace… she makes it easier to talk. She listens, and she always seems to know exactly how to unpick a knot, as you called them, that seemed impossible beforehand."

"She's always been like that. Always. Even as a little girl her brothers used to go to her and ask her to help them sort things out. Simon and his wife are still married because of Grace, Thomas attributes his sanity to her, and her nephews… when they were in school and growing up it was like a constant stream of lads in and out of her house, all asking for advice in exchange for mowing the lawn, fixing her car, mending the fences..."

He can imagine it without difficulty. Knows that periodically in the evenings her phone rings, and she can then easily spend half an hour or more talking one family member or another through some kind of crisis. It's just who she is. People naturally gravitate towards her and seem almost to be compelled to spill their secrets to her, to ask her opinion, her thoughts, or for her help.

"I think…" he begins, choosing his words slowly as he thinks them through, "that she helps me think more clearly. Feel more clearly. Not deliberately, but every time we talk, or I learn something about her, or I share something with her… those knots, they begin to unravel. Everything becomes a little less complicated and I feel like suddenly I can express things I've never known how. And that I understand things, why I react to things, a little more clearly. It's strange."

Iris laughs gently. "That's not strange, boy; that's Grace. She has that effect on all of us. Always has done." Then she sobers. "But you need to do the same in return. Grace is great at listening to and helping other people. She's terrible at doing the same for herself when it comes to what's going on in her heart. You need to learn to help her. You need to listen to her, encourage her to talk about what she's thinking, feeling."

Iris eyes him, expression all too knowing. "I know it's not your nature – I can tell that for myself, without years of being told by her – but if you want this thing between you to be successful then you need to listen to what she has to say.

"I know. I'm trying my best. It's not my strongest suit, but I'm learning."

"I believe you."

The clock ticks and both of them breathe, the seriousness of the conversation hanging heavily in the room. He wants to move past it, change the topic, but there's something he wants – has – to ask, while he has the chance. He could ask Grace, he knows, but he doesn't want to take her through it again, not when he saw the look in her eyes the night she confessed her story, not when he held her in his arms afterwards, not sure which of them was trembling the most.

"What happened to John?"

The old woman sighs, reaches out to brush her fingertips over the fronds of the fern sitting on the window sill before them. They ripple in response, an easy wave that is almost hypnotic to watch. "He's in prison. He could get parole in two years if we're unlucky."

"Two years?" gasps Boyd, instantly horrified by the thought. Blue eyes that are cold with memory flicker in his mind, the ridges and stripes of scar tissue tickling his gliding, wandering fingertips. The soft, almost dead tone in Grace's voice echoes in his ears, even as the warmth of her body pressed against his gives him something to hold on to, a grounding point.

The security, the knowledge of Grace's safety, it evaporates as Iris nods, expression grave.

"Jack will lose it if he gets released," she tells him, and when she looks up he can see the genuine fear in her eyes. "We were so, so lucky he got such a long sentence, but it's been years now, and no one serves their full term."

He knows that better than anyone. Has felt the sting, the anger, so many times over the course of his career as so often the guilty he's worked so hard to build cases against have been given almost nothing in punishment for their crimes.

"For a while afterwards I thought I might lose both of them – Grace to her injuries, Jack to the guilt."

"What happened?"

"She made him go to a counsellor. Someone she knew, had trained with. And then she asked him to face it all with her by going to court with her, helping her with everything that needed to be done. Jack has always tried to look after Grace, and she let him do it – asked him to do it – to help him, more than to help her. He was there for her through the trial, the divorce, moving house, dealing with John's possessions, his family, all of it. And they talked all the way through it – I know, because I used to end up with first one at my kitchen table, and then the other after each little step. I heard both sides of everything that went on."

Boyd swallows, says nothing. Waits.

"That," she admits, and for the first time since he walked through her door she looks genuinely old and tired, "was harrowing."

He can't imagine. Wonders how she dealt with it, how the fallout from such an event affected her too. Seeing it, living through it, then hearing her children's stories from each perspective, as well as her own.

"Jack thinks he's responsible for her. He's always blamed himself that she fell down the well, and he's spent his life trying to look after her."

"Why? You said it was an accident. And there's no way he could have known what John would do."

Iris taps the rim of her mug, lips pursing as she thinks. "I have no idea. Because he's the oldest, maybe? I've asked him many times, tried to tell him that he's wrong and that none of it was his fault. I think part of it is that he – all of my boys – love their sister so much. I lost a child between Simon and Grace. Simon wasn't very old at the time, but they all knew about it. They were so excited about another sibling, and they knew how much it affected their dad and me. It was nearly five years before I got pregnant again – Henry and I had given up hoping by then."

It's one of those moments where there isn't a right thing to say. One where, if he opens his mouth, he's invariably going to say exactly the wrong thing. In the end though, he doesn't have to say anything because Iris keeps talking.

The air changes in the room, becomes much lighter and easier, the heaviness of their conversation and its grim topic dying away as warmer memories replace it.

"When Grace was born… it was lovely. They absolutely worshiped her from the very beginning. Wanted to help look after her, teach her things as she grew, play with her, watch her dance on stage – everything. You'd have thought three boys wouldn't have been that interested in having a sister, especially one with such an age gap – they were six, seven and nine when she was born – but no, it was like she instantly had three very protective bodyguards."

Boyd grins at the image that forms in his head, drifts over to the photograph on the wall again to study the four children in it. It's easy to imagine how they were all so keen to look after her. He's spent years feeling his hackles rise and his protective instincts flare up at the merest hint of any sort of threat or challenge to her, and the last few weeks have only kicked all of that up a gear.

"There is something about her – something I've never been able to understand – that brings those kind of instincts out in other people," he admits, still struck by the apparent bond between the siblings he is studying. "In me, my team – Spencer in particular…"

"You mean, _you_ in particular."

Twisting around he finds great delight in her face and capitulates, hoping the desperate curiosity he feels isn't revealed in his voice. "Just how much has she told you about me?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," is the response, delivered in accompaniment with a wickedly amused grin.

"Yes!" There's no point in pretending.

Iris pauses, makes him wait. The unholy glee in her eyes reminds him so strongly of Grace that again he wonders whether he might just be glimpsing what, if he's very, very lucky, the rest of his life might look something like. "Enough that I've been waiting for this day for years," she finally says.

An uncomfortable feeling prickles across his skin. "What do you mean?"

"You, in my kitchen."

"I don't follow."

"Before today I'd met you twice before, for less than five minutes in all, granted, but good lord, from what I saw you can forget the great fire of London – the sparks alone flying off the two of you could have brought the city to the ground."

"I –"

"Do you have _any_ idea how frustrating it is to sit and listen to the world's longest, slowest burning flame and not be able to do anything about it? How much patience I've needed to sit here for _years_ , listening to a handful of comments here and there that add up to a great romance that's so bloody obvious to everyone but the pair of you?"

There's not a lot he can say to that. He's an idiot when it comes to women, he knows, and especially in matters of the heart, but, "'A great romance?'"

Iris shrugs. "You can only see Grace. I can see _both_ of you."

"Oh." Boyd pauses, the wind in his sails yet again dissipating rapidly. "It was that obvious?"

"Most definitely."

He frowns, not quite liking the idea that the recent change in his relationship status might not be such a secret after all. "What do you mean, 'everyone'?" he asks, suspicious.

"Eve. I'm fairly certain she's wanted to lock the both of you in her lab overnight on more than one occasion now, though she did mention not wanting to have to re-sterilise it the next morning before getting her bodies out again. Something about cross-contamination of DNA, not that I have _any_ idea what that means."

"Of _course_ you don't," he replies, sarcasm oozing from the words.

Iris smirks, Boyd rolls his eyes. "You owe the swear jar a pound," he tells her, helpfully.

Blue eyes narrow. "It's my jar, my rules."

"Do as I say, not as I do?" he challenges.

She sips her tea, grimaces, and tips it down the sink. "That was disgusting. Far too stewed." He laughs, recognising the tactic, and empties his own mug as well.

"I'll make some more, you go and fetch her back inside," orders Iris, nodding towards the back door. Boyd obeys, still laughing to himself over the old woman's audacity and her ability to quickly redirect the conversation to her benefit.

Wandering outside he surveys the even, smooth stone-flagged garden path that twists and turns between an array of raised flower beds that are every bit as neatly kept as the rest of the house, and which bloom with a rich variety of colour and textures, despite the lateness of the season. Grace is halfway down the long, thin stretch of land, perched on the edge of a raised, wooden-sided herb bed, her fingers twining through the distinctive stems of rosemary, her eyes unfocused, mind lost somewhere far from this well-loved garden.

He pauses for a moment, watching her in silence, his mind needing the chance to let go of the tension of the long and difficult conversation he's just had. Iris is intriguing, and a wealth of information, but everything she's just shared with him will take some time to digest. That she has shared it though… is very valuable. Grace's vulnerabilities have always fascinated him because normally they are so well hidden that even when deliberately looking he'd struggle to find them. Her strength has always amazed him, her resilience awed him, but lately he's felt himself accidentally touching the frayed edge of that weakness on occasion, though each time he's been left with little explanation. Little understanding of how to help her, what to do for her. With her.

She's let him see the edges, the barriers, but perhaps it is as Iris has just said and it's not that the scars and the wounds and the dark memories contained beyond are forbidden territory, but instead that she doesn't know how to let him pass through, isn't able yet to give him the key.

He wonders how and when and why and what will change that. What he can do to show her that it's okay. That he cares. That he wants to listen. And, he muses, what is it he's failed to do so far? What has he overlooked? What hasn't he told her, or shown her, or made her feel?

It's been just a few weeks, but in some ways it feels like a lot longer. They've been so busy, but has he neglected her? Has he let the wild, exciting passion of it get in the way of helping to secure those important early blocks of foundation? Is he just as guilty of not really listening to what she's tried to tell him in the small, dark hours of the night?

Grace's hand falls to her side and her fingers twitch slightly – she knows he's there. Knows he's watching her. It's time to table his thoughts for now and join her, he decides, knowing he can't spend the rest of the day contemplating what he's learned. There will be time enough later. Time to think, and to talk. He'll make sure of it.

Gait easy, Boyd ambles down to her, slips in beside her, sitting down so that his hip is pressed against hers, their legs touching. Even with the fabric of his jeans and hers between them, it's still a thrill.

"All right?" she asks, a hint of curiosity in his voice that immediately tells him she really does know what's just happened in the kitchen.

"Mm," he murmurs. "I think so."

She twists. Looks up at him. "You think so?"

"You set me up." It's an accusation, but a mild one. There's no anger or malice in him.

Still, Grace shakes her head. "No, I didn't. I had a feeling she would want to talk to you, but whatever just happened wasn't pre-planned. I didn't bring you here to be interviewed."

"You sure about that, are you?"

"Positive. She kicked me out – didn't you notice?"

He blinks, confused. Grace sighs. "The blackberries were a guise. She wants them, yes, and she will make a crumble, but that was mother ordering me out of the kitchen so she could have you all to herself. Why do you think I've been out here all this time? It's not exactly warm, you know…"

Astonished, both at the subtext he missed, and at the level of unspoken communication between the two women, he says, "What if you'd come back inside?"

"I'd have been sent away with a flea in my ear and an order to get more berries."

"Oh." It's a revelation, certainly. And an insight into not just the elderly woman inside, but the younger one perched beside him. A highly thought-provoking one.

"What?" she asks.

He shakes his head, not understanding. "What what?"

Grace inclines her head. "The expression on your face."

Ah, that. "Nothing really. I'm just taking it all in. She's… an interesting character."

The laughter that tickles his ears tugs at his heart, ignites a warm fire deep in his chest. Sliding closer, he curls an arm around her waist, rubbing one hand gently up and down her arm, noticing that she is indeed cold and shivering slightly. It's not a day to be outside for a prolonged period of time, he realises, despite the unseasonable warmth from the now fading sun. Winter is most definitely approaching.

He's not sorry for that though. Winter means lots of long nights tucked up indoors alone together and he has plans for the big fireplace in his living room, for the deep bathtub in his master bathroom, and for the stockpile of elegant candles hidden away in one of his kitchen cupboards.

What he is sorry for is not noticing the weather. For putting her health at risk. Gently, he encourages her off the edge of the flowerbed and back against his chest where he can wrap both arms around her, tucking her into the warmth of his body. And from there it's so easy to lean down and brush an affectionate kiss to her lips in response to the soft smile she gives him.

Cold hands burrow under the back of his sweater as he leans back, and he grimaces automatically at the sensation.

"Sorry," she murmurs, moving to pull them away, but he shakes his head and hugs her tighter, hooking a leg around hers and effectively pinning her against his body, utterly disinclined to let her go. Mischief and affection immediately dance in her eyes, instantly leap between the two of them, infecting him as well as Grace leans up again, her lips seeking his, finding with practiced ease. She's flush against him, her hands leaving his back to climb higher and twine around his neck, and her eyes are firmly closed as she traces her lips over his, the motion exquisitely slow, as if she is savouring every detail of the moment. His own eyes sliding shut, Boyd hears her hum in pleasure, can't help tightening his grip, one arm keeping her snared against him while the other drifts up so that he can bury his fingers in her hair.

It's incredibly addictive, kissing her. She's incredibly addictive. Her smile, her laughter, the looks she shares with him, the things she whispers in his ear… a shiver runs down his spine as she breaks away to breathe, her voice dripping a tantalising, erotic promise for later straight into his ear, her words a low, husky purr. Mind almost overwhelmed with the visions chasing through it he turns his head and captures her lips again, groaning softly as she arches slightly, deliberately pressing her breasts tighter against his chest.

Disorientated and adrift in the spell she's cast upon him, he catches a fragrant mixture of herbs as her hand cups his jaw and he automatically inhales deeply, caught in the mix of scents, the way their lips dance together, the way her tongue reaches out first, seeking its mate, exploring. It's hedonistic and raw and entirely natural, and so incredibly good because of it. So good that he –

" _Elizabeth Grace Foley_!" It's an imperious warning, one that only a mother can effectively deliver, and it has exactly the desired effect, making the two lovers pull reluctantly but instantly apart, looking quickly around, faces equally guilty.

"Fuck," hisses Grace, her expression dazed. He's not sure where the coarse language came from, though he guesses it's either because she managed, as he did, to forget entirely where they are, or because they've been caught – again.

Something doesn't seem right, though, and for a moment he's confused, but then Boyd's eyes light up as his brain processes what he's just heard, even as a dark, thunderous scowl appears on Grace's face as she realises it, too.

"You're _joking_ ," he whispers, staring at her with sheer glee. Eyes narrowed, lips pinched together Grace says nothing for a long moment that tells him everything, long before she slowly shakes her head in resignation.

"Your name is _Elizabeth_? Really?"

She nods, reluctantly. "It is."

" _Really_?"

"It's in my personnel file," Grace points out, patience evaporating almost instantaneously.

Boyd shrugs and shakes his head dismissively, still far to entertained. "I've never read it. We'd known each other for years when the CCU started, so I didn't see any point."

"Well it is," she mutters. "And that's where it should stay."

Amused, and intrigued, he smirks down at her. "Is that so?"

The fierce, "Absolutely," he gets in response does nothing to deter him.

"Why have you never told me?" he asks.

"You've never asked," is the short reply he gets. She reaches down, picks up her basket of berries. "Come on, we'd better get back inside."

He's becoming more and more intrigued by the second. "Hang on a minute, you can't just drop a bombshell like that on me and then immediately move on."

The expression on Grace's face is entirely inflexible. " _I_ didn't drop it."

"True," he concedes, "but come on… you know what I mean."

Every bit a stubborn as he is, she says nothing. Boyd wants to laugh, thinks it's a bad idea, but still can't suppress the building amusement inside himself. Never in his wildest dreams would he have ever considered something like this. Nor would he have predicted her reaction to hearing her full name uttered in such tones from her mother. It's… hugely entertaining.

Something else occurs to him, too. "What else is in your personnel file that I don't know about, _Elizabeth_?"

Grace glowers up at him, and he can almost feel the daggers pricking his skin, such is the fury that radiates from her. " _Don't_ call me that. Not if you know what's good for you."

"But it's –"

"No!"

"Okay, okay," he holds up his hands in acquiescence. "Why 'Grace'?"

"Because my grandmother was Elizabeth." She seems to relent a little. Says, "And the answer to your other question is you'll just have to read it to find out."

"Really?" he prods.

"Really," she pushes, clearly not going to give him anything more.

Boyd gives her the sly grin he knows she can't easily resist, far from gallant enough to refrain from resorting to more underhand tactics. "You won't tell me...?"

Grace, however, appears immune on this particular occasion. "No. You can find out for yourself."

Gazing at her, at her fierce defiance, her immovable stance as she stands staring up at him, Boyd feels his grin widen. Deliberately he drops his voice a little lower, leans in closer to let his words fall straight from his lips into her ear. "What if I find a way to learn more about you without reading?"

She shivers, he feels it. He feels it, and he's definitely not enough of a gentleman not to feel smug about it. He pulls back, gazes down at her again. Deliberately lets her see his eyes wander over her body, lingering in some places longer than others. "Would that be agreeable, _Grace_?" The inflection on her name is also deliberate, so is the visible reaction it causes.

She swallows, nods slowly. Her eyes are a dead giveaway, too, and damn, if they were home right now…

They really do need to get back inside, he thinks. It's getting colder by the minute, Grace is definitely chilled now and Iris is watching them. It would be far too easy to drag the moment out, to stay out here and fall headlong into her charms, but now is not the time nor the place. There's a crumble that needs to be made and more talk to be had, so back inside it is, but first…

He kisses her. Steps straight into her personal space, tugs her easily against his body and kisses her. Deep and hot and hard, and entirely too swiftly, pulling back quickly to revel in the frustrated fire he fully expects to – and does – find in her eyes. There will be hell to pay later, he knows. And he will enjoy each and every moment of it. And so will she.

"You were right," he tells her, taking the basket from her arm and turning back towards the house, resting his palm on her lower back to guide her up the path. "I do like your mother."


End file.
